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We know he is willing to assist with the imprisonment and torture of people that he, at that point of the story, has no evidence of being guilt (which still wouldn’t excuse things like torture but could explain his willingness to comply).

He has L’s word for their guilt and one could say he trusts L to be right. Even if that’s the case, Watari arranged for the death of a criminal to be on television so L could conduct a test.

Just through examples from the Kira case, one cannot say Watari only does what is right and good in the eyes of common sense morality.

Knowing Mr. Wammy established several orphanages, it’s easy to think, like Matsuda says, and say Watari was a great man. Someone who is a brilliant inventor and who uses their wealth to house orphans around the globe doesn’t sound like a bad person.

Death Note TV drama photogaph courtesty of NTV

But what do we know about those orphanages?

If they were like Wammy’s House, they were spacious, barely furnished places. One could argue the children there required rooms with little to no furniture as they would use the space to play like Near does by building card towers. It’s interesting to notice, then, that the rooms don’t have chairs or even cushions for the children to sit in when they are expected to do so (take for example Mello and Near speaking with Roger and the children speaking with L).

The adults responsible for the care of the children seem to care very little for them and Roger allows a fourteen-year-old to leave his care.

The children collected and taken to his orphanages are gifted and they are trained to become the next L. Those children are raised in a competitive environment for no reason other than Mr. Wammy decided they should.

Wammy dons his white gloves to leave no mark

Given how Watari acts in the Kira case, we know he has no issues with doing questionable things in order to accomplish a task.

In this case, could Watari be stealing geniuses for his project? The children at his institutions are supposed to be orphans but it’s clear he isn’t doing this out of kindness in an attempt to provide them a loving home.

If they are orphans, not only they have nowhere to go, no one to reach out to, and are forced to stay, but they have no ties holding them back.

The children are taught to look for what entertains them, but they are also given a fake choice as they grow up. They are raised to compete with each other in order to become L’s successor and, for that to happen, they have to learn to want to become L’s successors.

It doesn’t matter they may choose not to become L as long as they want to have the skills required to still be an option. The objective of the orphanages is not to house orphans but to house gifted children who have the potential to be L’s successors.

The autonomy of those children is denied from a very young age in such a way they grow to believe the way they are guided by beliefs they were manipulated into having are actually an expression of their own independent self.

The system in place to control and raise the gifted children at Wammy’s House does not care for the children’s needs and desires. In fact, it makes it so the children are led to believe their needs and desires are the ones the institution expect them to have, aka to become L’s successor.

If someone looks closely at Watari’s work, he doesn’t seem to be such a great man.

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There is little to no question about the unethical basis of the system behind Wammy’s House.

We are shown a place with barely any adult supervision in which the children are allowed to be aggressive or behave however they please, with a warden who seems to care very little for the children under his care to the point of simply letting one of them walk out and expecting another to do the same.

Not only that but the house itself seems to have almost no furniture.

In the story, it may not seem so odd since, by the time we are introduced to Wammy’s House, we are aware it isn’t just a common orphanage housing children. But that only makes the existence of such place even more disturbing.

Here is at least one house for gifted children, assumed to be orphans, who are raised in an unfriendly and competitive environment for no other reason other than Quillsh Wammy thought this was an important thing to do. Those children are taught their skills should be directed to a very specific goal: becoming L. L is a detective so the point of collecting those children is to groom them into becoming detectives. More than that, they are trained to be confident in their own reasoning, their own methods of doing what they enjoy.

If the children are taught to find a hobby and to find their own way of achieving the goals of said hobby, can we talk about indoctrination in Wammy’s House? Considering John White’s definition that indoctrination takes place if the intention of the teacher is to make it so that “(t)he child should believe that ‘p’ is true, in a such way that nothing will shake this belief” (White 1972a, 119 and 1973, 179), it could be said the point behind Wammy’s is to make sure the children believe their goal is worth everything.

If they want to solve a case, anything they do to accomplish that (be it breaking the law or putting themselves at risk or indirectly getting people killed or cheating) is worth it. Their conclusion is absolute to the point their actions are justified as if they are justice.

It’s important to point out that they are not acting for the sake of justice or in the name of justice. They act as if them themselves are the embodiment of justice.

In this sense, they can do no wrong because their actions are just, they are right because they are their actions.

For example, to sacrifice the Mafia in order to get a chance to capture Kira was a selfish action; Mello wasn’t acting in the name of justice. And it was because it was a selfish decision considering his own goals that he acts as if he is justice. Those lives are worth less than capturing this criminal.

This is an educational system Watari established for a reason canon doesn’t explore. Why would he want to indoctrinate children to believe their own conclusions and decisions, even when perceived as selfish ones, were right not only to themselves but to the world?

None of the Wammy’s kids wonder if Kira could possibly be right as we see Matsuda doing. They know he is a criminal; they know they have to stop him.

If we consider they are meant to solve crimes, it could be Watari actually had an altruistic goal in mind such as world peace. But there is no interference from him in the direction those children take, and, in fact, quite a few ex-Wammy’s kids are willing to become criminals in order to achieve a goal or prove a point.

Mello joins the Mafia, K joins a bio-terrorist group, B becomes a serial killer, L himself admits to being a criminal by current laws and is willing to use torture against Misa. Letting them do as they pleased, confident on their own skills and conclusions, seemed to be a pretty chaotic project.

As it is, Watari died before his experiment was complete and we only have bits and pieces of it to try and make sense of his project. But why was it important to Watari to create a group of people with that level of confidence in their own reasoning? Why was it important to let them loose in the world with no guidance or direction?

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While canon doesn’t linger on Quillsh Wammy on his own, Watari’s existence on itself is implied to occupy a much bigger role than what we actually see.

We are introduced to him as the connection between L and the outside world, and, as the story progresses, we also see Watari is responsible for carrying L’s orders as well as taking care of L himself. We see Watari as the liaison, the butler, the bodyguard and the assistant but we aren’t given a reason to explain this renewed inventor taking on those functions.

We are told, both in the original manga and in the L: The Wammy’s House One-shot, that Quillsh Wammy is a man of wealth. There is no reason keeping him from paying someone to look after L other than he chose to do it himself. And as we see when L arrives at Wammy’s house, he makes that decision soon after he is introduced to L. That is a choice we are left to explain on our own.

L hoarding toys in L: The Wammy House Death Note one-shot

It could’ve been boredom. Watari is shown to be an old man; it’s possible he has seen what he wanted to see and has done what he wanted to do. He’s an inventor, a creative mind, and he could be following this unpredictable child to see what he would do. Surely, boredom could be a motivation.

But what does it say for his morality that he allowed a young child to go unpunished for beating up his house-mates and hoarding toys meant to be shared?

More than that, he actually rewarded L’s behavior, showing him attention and giving him whatever he asked for even when that meant taking a monetary risk.

Although curiosity born out of boredom could be the reason Watari singles out L, it doesn’t explain the reasoning that created the circumstances that allowed him to find a child like L.

The orphanages weren’t created out of altruism and kindness. When we see one of them, we see a place with barely any furniture and a warden who cares so little for the children he’s responsible for that he doesn’t mind handing over private information he knew could endanger them. It’s not a place for children to grow up happily and safely, neither it is a place for children to be adopted.

After L, the point of, at least, Wammy’s House was to produce a successor and there is no explanation as to why the orphanages were meant to produce something in the first place. In that case, it’s more likely L was what they were looking for and not a random child Watari decided to entertain.

Considering Watari made the decision of establishing several orphanages after World War II, his motivation could’ve been to prevent another war, to find the one mind capable of intervening and putting a stop to such horrors. If L was the answer to the question he was trying to answer with his orphanages, Watari was looking for a kid capable of saying their own methods, their own morals, were just.

The idea behind his orphanages was grooming children who met a certain standard to become the moral compass of the world, and, by choosing this particular child to become the standard the other children should follow, Watari himself chose this child as the ideal one.

To make a choice like that, Quillsh Wammy had to be particularly confident on his own morality, his own sense of justice and his own intelligence. He had to be sure he was right, that was he was doing and the possible grief he would cause was worth it.

If Watari set out to find a child who could become Justice in the world, his resolve was not to raise children nor was it to provide them a loving home.

He established a system that allowed him to find someone he considered capable of being justice and provided this person with all resources required. He modified the system in place just enough to create another person based on the standard is first choice produced.

That being the case, we can say Watari considered the common good to be indubitably more important than personal well-being.

Death Note Near hearing L talk about justice and his cases

In fact, we can go beyond that and consider Watari didn’t change his methods after finding L as much as he was lucky enough to find a child who already did and strongly believed what he wanted the children under his care to do and believe.

Watari forced the children under his care to abide by his own moral inclination despite their own desires but to do so believing in their own deductive skills. They were indoctrinated to believe they, too, could be justice, but only if they were the very best. Personal safety, personal happiness, mental health, physical well-being, etc… were not as important as the good of the majority, but the good of the majority was taught to them as a consequence of their own actions, their own inclinations, their own search for answers.

Not only was Watari morally irresponsible as he allowed L to do as he wished (choosing the cases and methods he pleased under the pretence of representing justice), he was also morally wrong on the orphanage system he created. If he thought the world needed a moral compass that he could provide, he, at least, knew his methods were condemnable enough he should keep them hidden.

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It’s always interesting to discuss the motivations or moral inclinations one could read in the characters of Death Note.

In most cases, as one considers how a character’s morality fits into the story, it’s rather easy to see the reasons why the character themselves are important. However, Matsuda doesn’t seem to be remarkable in the same way the other characters of Death Note are.

In fact, thinking about Matsuda made me realize his importance seems to rely mostly on the fact he is actually isn’t remarkable at all.

Matsuda doesn’t hold strong enough convictions to make his moral actions interesting on their own, and that’s what makes his moral actions unique in this context. He is there to show us the difference between the characters involved in the Kira case (the genius detectives as well as the more experienced law enforcement) and the people affected by the Kira case (regular people such as Light’s family).

As a police officer, Matsuda still lacks the resolve the older investigators have, and that, which appears to make him simple-minded or even stupid sounding, puts this character in the position of judging Kira not as law enforcement but as just another person who can see the criminality rates dropping.

As a police detective lacking in experience, Matsuda becomes the one character involved in the Kira case that is just an ordinary person. He doesn’t have, yet, the strength of will to do good despite himself and, as we see when Matsuda is confronted by the reveal of Kira’s identity, his personal feelings and his moral views are still pretty much the same. If his importance comes from being the less experienced detective, it also comes from Matsuda being our constant reminder of a common sense point of view among more specific moral inclinations.

That is not to say, in any way, that Matsuda isn’t willing to sacrifice himself. The values Matsuda holds true and that motivate him towards acts of selflessness are not motivated by the greater good, so to say. If we look closely, he acts kindly and in a caring manner not as a police officer but as a friend or an empathetic acquaintance. Matsuda’s acts of bravery don’t hold the same meaning as Soichiro’s or Aizawa’s because their reasoning is presented to us as something done because that’s the right thing to do despite their internal conflicts while Matsuda’s actions are shown to be motivated by a desire to do good but an inability to detach himself from his personal desires and conclusions. For example, to show the contrast between Matsuda and the other investigators, we can take Ide as an example.

Ide disagrees with L and walks away from the investigation, he is still unable to walk away from the case itself as that would be turning a blind eye into a situation considered morally wrong. Ide couldn’t bring himself to choose neutrality when he was faced with the consequences of letting Kira run free; walking away from the investigation becomes a shameful act. When Matsuda is faced with doubts regarding Near as L, he isn’t ready to choose his convictions over his work even when he seems convinced Near did terrible things to be able to end the Kira case.

By the end of the manga, Matsuda has acquired some experience and that’s enough to make him doubt Near’s intentions. Nevertheless, Matsuda is, still, only beginning to abandon the path of an ordinary person and truly becoming an investigator. As he chooses to put aside his worries about Near, he also shows us there is a transition to be made from an ordinary person who is meant to be protect by the law and whose concerns can be perceived as personal ones, an actual investigator who can understand doing the right thing requires more than a good heart.

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To mark the tenth anniversary of Death Note, there's a fabulous analysis of the manga's protagonist over on Anime News Network.

Under the heading Ten Years of Death Note: Is Light the Bad Guy?, columnist Jacob Hope Chapman takes a reasonably in-depth, albeit whistle-stop look not only at the character of Light Yagami himself, but how fans received him and how the author may have intended him to be.

There's a discussion on why people might accept mass murder and even justify the need - touching upon the darker impulses within us all; and whether insanity runs more rampant than merely with Kira.

Chapman brilliantly, and humorously, makes the case for Light Yagami being no 'anti-hero' nor erstwhile saviour, but a villain par excellence. Perhaps manga's most iconic villain at that.

Moreover, Chapman contextualises Kira within the wider auspices of justice. Making me happy, he also alights upon issues of human rights, which Light Yagami certainly never goes near.

Though he never elaborates upon the point, the columnist does demonstrate quite clearly how easily society will accept the wicked and insane, if the justification is presented gradually and enticingly enough. In this regard using Kira apologists amongst the Death Note fandom as an example, rather than, say, Donald Trump's supporters. Seen from a long view, their pro-Kira arguments are denigrated as 'commonly insane'. Can't argue there!

Everyman Matsuda - The Reader's Representative Within the Death Note Plot?

Chapman also talks about other characters in relation to Light Yagami (who is, after all, the focus of his analysis).

In particular he notes how Matsuda is too regularly dismissed as merely the idiot of the Death Note world. When, upon closer inspection, it turns out that the young police officer holds a vital role within the narrative and its dramatis personæ.

Matsuda serves as an everyman, the character whose views act as a litmus test for the wider perspective of fashionable society. As he wavers in support of Kira, then so do the greater Japanese masses.

If not an actual bellwether, then Matsuda certainly performs as a weathercock, testing the winds of public acclaim or disdain concerning Kira at any given juncture.

His ultimate dismissal of Light Yagami as God - or Kira as a force of justice and good - pretty much serves as the Japanese populace turning its collective back upon such grandiose pretensions of divinity. Or as Chapman puts it:

Matsuda's emotional breakdown is one of the best parts of the show's finale because it just feels so right. Over time, without anyone noticing, Matsuda came to represent the everykid: all those normal Japanese millennials just trying to live their lives, maybe secretly posting defenses of Kira online, maybe just keeping their conflicted feelings to themselves, but open enough to the incredible change Kira had caused to feel like maybe condemning him wasn't fair. Of course there's something attractive about the idea of people who hurt others getting universally punished to create a more peaceful humanity. But it's just an idea, and when Matsuda is confronted with the reality of Kira—an egomaniacal brat who even killed his own dad to further his self-righteous empire—he feels more betrayed than anyone else.~ Ten Years of Death Note: Is Light the Bad Guy?, Jacob Hope Chapman, Anime News Network (March 18th 2016)

And though Chapman doesn't go so far as to say it, doesn't that make Matsuda our representative in the Death Note universe too? The Everyman serves as spokesperson for the readership, as we get seduced by the rhetoric of Light Yagami and symbolizes our own slap in the face by reality, as Kira's descent into insanity becomes way too obvious to support.

Then we too, like Matsuda, get to retrace our own allegiances back through each worsening compromise to that first loosening of all common sense and good morals.

Instead, Chapman sees in Matsuda a proxy for Tsugumi Ohba's own secret views on the matter, which itself makes fascinating reading and compelling food for thought. It's definitely worth the time to check it out.

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Affording an intriguing glimpse into the persona of Ryūzaki (Sousuke Ikematsu), two more picture stillshave been made public from the filming of Japanese live-action movie Death Note 2016.

We already knew that Sousuke Ikematsu's character Ryūzaki was created genetically from the DNA left behind by L for this purpose during his own lifetime. (The scientists here are straining at the bit to discuss that titbit in due course!) Today's information adds just that Ryūzaki was raised at Wammy's House.

It seems the regime there went a step further even than the scenario warned by Beyond Birthday (and Mello) in Another Note. The notion of a 'back-up' not so much a brainwashed boy, as an actual clone.

So did they keep DNA of them all? Will the next baby squalling from a test-tube be Mello or Matt?

Reproduced with permission from an essay originally, and fully, published at DEATH NOTES: an online source for Death Note Analysis and Discussion(links at the end)

by Serria

Disclaimer: This is a fan essay, only for fun on my part with the hope of generating discussion. I'm well-aware that characters in any form of media are always open for interpretation, and this is just mine.

Light Yagami certainly has a reputation among the fandom, and that reputation isn't founded for pointlessly. The justice-toting boy-genius murdered thousands of people, most of which without so much as batting an eye. And he doesn't regret a single one.

On the contrary, he probably views each as a job well done. It isn't just the killing, either. Light claims each victim with boyish enthusiasm and possesses a childish demeanour that leads him to be competitive to the point of taunting the condemned with a sinister smile and dancing on their grave (literally, if he gets worked up enough). Yes, that's the Light Yagami we know, our unforgettable protagonist of Death Note.

Light is a killer. Light has no disturbed childhood to blame. Light voluntarily kills and once he found the Death Note, probably wouldn't be happy doing anything else. On those facts alone, we could infer any number of similar conclusions. I've heard Light called, by the morally concerned, disturbed. The face of evil. Hopelessly insane. And, most common of all, sociopath. The label insinuates a total lack of everything we call humanity. The inability to feel guilt for any wrongdoing, and thus, a total lack of conscience. If we chose to conclude that, then Light Yagami isn't normal, he isn't like you or me.

But the aforementioned facts are not all there is to Light Yagami, and it's a slam to the complexity - and, I emphatically insist, realism - of his character to assume as such merely because he kills. 'Killer' and 'sociopath' are not interchangeable words. The nature of the killing has to be taken into consideration. As far as the victim is concerned, murder is murder is murder, but not as far as the perpetrator is. The immediate fact of the matter is that sociopaths are, as a rule, self-focused and unable to empathize with the world or the people around him. This contradicts the very nature of Kira's legacy. Certainly there's the fact that Light was a bored, under-challenged genius in a society where he functioned solely on outward appearances and achievements, and certainly there's no doubt that a part of Light was perhaps waiting for the opportunity to test himself. But I honestly cannot conceive how this in any way discounts the fact that the reason Light took the opportunity he did was out of his zealous sense of idealism.

We know for a fact that Light has a societal conscience, beyond mere conditioning (if that were the case, Light wouldn't possess even half the passion that he does). The first chapter/first episode of the series is exclusively about Light's convictions. First, the shock at perhaps having actually taken a person's life, and then the total horror when he's tested it again and realized that he's killed people and yes, it's his fault. The anxiety he feels, that he's capable of feeling, does inexcusably deny him from the title of sociopath. Light is so disturbed by his actions that he can't eat, can't sleep, loses ten pounds in the first week and looks as though he's about to throw up. And finally, the resolution: doing this could make the world a better place. "Even if I sacrifice my mind and soul," Light states (even predicts). "The world is rotting. Someone has to do it." Light even acts initially under the impression that a Shinigami is going to come take his soul as soon as he's found, and when Ryuk arrives he's surprised that he's not going to be punished. Agree with his methods or not, it wouldn't be wrong to call Light's ambition selfless, wanting to "protect the weak" and "make a perfect world" without, as far as the text writes, asking in return for anything conventional such as money, sex, or political power (which also separates him from being a dictator, by definition).

Some argue the sincerity of Light's resolve as being only an excuse to jump at the chance to ease his boredom. I don't personally think that's fair, but nonetheless, the very fact that Light experiences such vivid anxiety before impulsively engaging in such risky behavior already excludes him from the title.

Now to get technical. "Sociopath" isn't a medical term, and though it has general uses it's not a proper diagnosis. When talking about sociopaths/psychopaths in the psychology field, most often we're talking about Antisocial Personality Disorder. The brief definition as listed in the DSM-IV is "The essential feature for the diagnosis is a pervasive pattern of disregard for, and violation of, the rights of others that begins in childhood or early adolescence and continues into adulthood." Sure, that's pretty vague and by that sentence alone, I'd agree without a doubt that Light is quick to violate the human rights of others, in particular the right to life (but let it be stated that the same can be said of L, Near and Mello). But the criteria goes beyong that. First, we can't quite call Light an APD at the beginning of the series - one has to be an adult aged at least 18. Furthermore, APDs ought to have a history of conduct disorder (breaking the law, inappropriate actions, truancy, running away from home, etc) since before the age of 15. I think it's safe to say that the Yagami's golden boy who so emphatically values the law hasn't even come close. Also, APDs are known for drug and alcohol abuse, which again, does not apply...

DEATH NOTES is an invaluable resource for those who like a bit of academia in their reading of the Death Note manga. Largely inactive now, its archives nevertheless contain a rich bounty of timeless essays written during the period when Death Note was first coming to the attention of international audiences and readers. The site's essayists emanate from varying disciplines within the academe, with less formal - sometimes downright flippant - pieces interspersed for flavour.

The excerpt above was republished here with permission from DEATH NOTES' editor Jennifer Fu.

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Surely all who ever read the manga, watched the anime, or enjoyed the films and TV drama have pondered its central point:

If a Death Note dropped and landed in your lap; if you were guaranteed that it worked and nobody knew that you had it; what then?

I'm certain each of us have silently amused ourselves harmlessly thinking psychopathic thoughts. Surprising ourselves by shocking into open daydream hitherto unknown and unsavoury cerebral indulgences. Serial killing tendencies that may otherwise have never crossed our minds.

But it's OK. No-one will ever know. Just a bit of fiction wrapped around with fancy, that anyway is never going to happen.

So we mentally kill a politician or two, whomever is being an idiot on the news that day, or whose policies have actually ruined our world. An opening gambit in our meandering musing bid to save humanity; improve our lot - not us per say - the little people without much of a voice, trampled historically from ancestor to ancestor and then well into our own lifetimes. Or those suffering properly in far-flung war-torn places; repressed, helpless, bereft of hope and security; certainty only in that looming loss of life and liberty.

Because we personally know plenty of them.

Nevertheless, it sounds suitably heroic. And we can be heroes, David Bowie said we can.

Except then we cerebrally kill the rude commuter just now pushing past us in the queue, and the jobs-worth conductor on the train, and the incomparably selfish git who sent that smug email waiting for us when we get in.

Suddenly the self-congratulatory glow of knowing ourselves to be superheroes - secretly - has slipped a little, and its going to take a lot more justification to accept the slip of their wanton murder, than it does for that of a talking head politician abusing your mandate to act upon domestic and world stages.

Doesn't it? It's not just disappointment in politics playing out not as you would wish.

I mean, people can get killed there with the latter signing their name on scraps of paper. Directives to bomb and bills to suspend indifferently yet another civil liberty. It could be you. And anyway, foreign victims over there shouldn't be nameless, unavenged. We're all brothers and sisters in this world.

Politicians are the actual Kiras of the Real World. Writing in their notebooks of death. Thus we should do that too. Practically obligatory. Self-defence. Poetic justice.

But it's all a matter of scale and we're in Yagami country now, as regards to our moral compass.

How far did you get in your mental musings, before you found yourself skirting a little too close to becoming Kira? Scary, isn't it? When there but for the Grace of no shinigami, bored and visiting to enable us, we might all be Kira next.

Incidentally, I do see a rotten world and take names, write them down to make it better. Because sometimes urgent action needs to be taken. I've been doing it for years, and you can too. Better to light a candle in the world than curse the darkness. Better Light, than Kira.

Though trust me, there are times when I wish that the letters I penned where written on pages from a shinigami notebook. No better than Light in the end; just a human being, that's all, in want of peace and a world as beautiful as it can be. Which is what causes that endless craving for action when things go wrong - somebody to just do something - and what makes Death Note such an attractive and intriguing concept.

What do you reckon? All secretly seething with the inherent instinct of a Kira? Or was Light Yagami somehow special, insane or burdened with a flawed sort of personality? Over to you.

Opinion piece written by Leila Lawliet M for Month of Light Yagami on Death Note News. The rest of this post is given over to and penned by her.

Not long ago, I watched a video by YouTuber Onision. In this video, Onision basically says that Light Yagami's mistake is not considering PREVENTING crime, as opposed to punishing criminals who've ALREADY done bad things.

And by preventing crime, I mean writing for example, "Anyone who THINKS of committing a crime will be killed by the power of this notebook, before they get to actually fulfil their intentions."

I disagree, because preventing crimes by killing anyone who intends to commit them makes deaths looks like coincidences or normal deaths. In other words, if you were to hear of the death of a certain person of which no one knows the intentions, it would've NEVER occurred to you there's someone out there "passing righteous judgement", which we all know is one of Light's ultimate goals, to make Kira famous and worshipped.

On the other hand, Light's method made people aware of Kira's existence, the existence of an entity playing the role of God, or a really powerful judge, now that the deceased are known to the public as criminals, therefore changing their mentalities and making them think twice before trying to kill/steel/rape...

Another valid argument,is the following: imagine if someone thought really hard about killing another person, even prepared for it and intended it deeply. But, this person has a final wake up from his conscience five seconds before stabbing the victim-to-be, and ends up not killing anyone.

Would Onision's method work here? Wouldn't this method have killed the future-criminal before his conscience stepped in?

I think yes, because all that sentence written in Death Note needs in order to be applied is a strong willingness to kill, which is present in the example.

But then again, that's just my wicked over-analysis and my own point-of-view to which you are free to reply.

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Would Kira have been Kira if he wasn't Japanese? What if he'd been Welsh? Or Somali? From Uzbekistan or France? Would an American Light Yagami have targeted criminals with such gusto? Would a Tibetan Kira's motivation have been the same?

Death Note is a Japanese story, whatever its global appeal, and much of what occurs within it is infused with Japanese culture, morality and mores. Certain stances of etiquette, expectation and projected outcomes could only have happened in Japan.

Would an Icelandic parent have stood by and let their home and family be subject to such surveillance? Could a Briton have been persuaded to volunteer themselves for torturous weeks of detention without charge? And would the perpetrators have been allowed to get away with it, if their victim actually agreed? My cynical self says yes. But that's by the by.

The Death Note really could have fallen anywhere in the world

It's wrong to generalize based on national stereotypes, but intriguing to surmise the outcome had the Death Note fallen anywhere else in the world. Or how much Light Yagami's inherent Japaneseness affected the manner in which it was used; the motivation, thought processes and justifications that he passed through along the way; and the profile of those he killed, however vague their points of commonality may be.

What if the shinigami's notebook of death had landed in Syria? Would war crimes have factored much sooner in the programme than it occurred to Light to do so? Would Mexicans have taken on drug barons? Or those in the Niger Delta started on the profit-ridden oil polluters of fresh water - environmental evils trumping thuggish anti-social behaviour in the street? Callous corporations and white collar criminality could well come first in many an Industrialised, Capitalist nation. While localised gangs and small-time, blue collar crime would occupy erstwhile Kiras from other lands.

How about your own? If the Death Note had dropped into your neighbourhood, how might Kira look then? And would (s)he act anything like Light Yagami?

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Reproduced with permission from an essay originally, and fully, published at DEATH NOTES: an online source for Death Note Analysis and Discussion(links at the end)

by Andrew Capuano

If someone intentionally carries out a horrendous deed in an attempt to create a beneficial result, does that make it right?

It's one of those questions that people have pondered over for ages. Some say that it would depend on what the action and result were, though others would argue the means can not simply be forgotten because of the way things happened to turn out. If the goal was the ultimate good imaginable, would it matter what was done to obtain it?

This question is deeply examined in the manga, Death Note, which is written by Tsugumi Ohba, and illustrated by Takeshi Obata.

Light Yagami and Immanuel Kant

The character of Light Yagami tries to create a perfect world free from crime by cleansing the world of evil. He plans to use the Death Note, a book owned by a god of death, to murder criminals and other people he deems as evil by writing their names into the Death Note. Light might have had good intentions, especially at first, but a utopian society founded on homicide is unattainable. Regardless of the good that he intended to do, the unthinkable acts that Light commits eradicate the possibility of a perfect world, or any positive outcome for that matter. In other words, it is impossible to meet a noble end by employing such horrific means.

Light's actions are considered immoral by the standards of deontological ethics, namely Kantian ethics. Immanuel Kant believed that a person's duty was central to morality, and was more important than simply cultivating pleasure. Kant's main idea was his 'Categorical Imperative,' which states: "Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law." 1 In layman's terms, Kant is saying you should only do something if you would want everybody else to start doing it too. More accurately, you should not act on a general rule (maxim) you would not want everyone else to follow as if it were a law of nature (universal law). The Categorical Imperative can be employed with ease to prove that Light's conduct is deplorable.

If everybody acted on the general rule that Light is acting on, (If someone judges a person as evil, it is all right to kill that person) the world would not be able to function for very long, and even if it did last, it is exceedingly unlikely that someone could ever want to live in such a world. If everyone acted on the maxim stated above, then all the people would start killing each other and the world would become a bloodbath. People would start killing others that they considered to be evil, and then others still would kill the previously mentioned murderers, since most people believe murder to be wrong. It would proceed in this fashion, until no one was left alive.

The problem with human judgement is that a person may not know all the facts. If someone deems a person to be evil, but that person was framed or the information was false or otherwise incomplete, then an innocent person would be killed, simply because he was incorrectly deemed evil by someone else. Since it is inconceivable to will the world to be that way, judging people as Light does is immoral.

Kant's Categorical imperative can be reworded in order for it to apply to more situations. The second formulation states that we are to "[a]ct in such a way that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, always at the same time as an end and never merely as a means to an end." 2 Basically, Kant is saying that people should never be used or manipulated by others. It is morally unacceptable to exploit other people, no matter what ends you are attempting to achieve. Light does this frequently in his doomed quest for a perfect world...

DEATH NOTES is an invaluable resource for those who like a bit of academia in their reading of the Death Note manga. Largely inactive now, its archives nevertheless contain a rich bounty of timeless essays written during the period when Death Note was first coming to the attention of international audiences and readers. The site's essayists emanate from varying disciplines within the academe, with less formal - sometimes downright flippant - pieces interspersed for flavour.

The excerpt above was republished here with permission from DEATH NOTES' editor Jennifer Fu.

Reproduced as part of

It might sound obvious to conclude that Death Note's Light Yagami is a serial killer, but the definition of such might not so easily collude.

However there are also sub-categories of serial killer which may fit more precisely. Not to mention other classifications of murderer, which approach the sheer scale of slaughter committed by Light Yagami through his Death Note and might even address it.

Near denounced Kira as 'just a murderer'. Fine. But would the FBI concur? Or might a more distinct label apply in its casebook? Time to find out if, as most readily assume, the designation serial killer actually does check out when held up against Light.

What is a Serial Killer?

According to Segen's Medical Dictionary (2012), a serial killer is usually - but not exclusively - an individual who:

kills three or more people;

over a period of thirty days plus;

with an inactive (or cooling off) period between each murder;

and whose motivation for killing is largely based on psychological gratification.

That latter grouping is easily dispensed with. So let's quickly get it out of the way first.

Is Light Yagami a Serial Killer?

Comparing the Typical Attributes of a Serial Killer to Light Yagami

There's an issue with the data concerning serial killer attributes. Unlike much of the other information provided by the BSU, this chart doesn't cover international cases. Its criteria solely relates to US citizens. (Read the PDF.) Nevertheless, we'll give it a go.

Since the late 18th century - when racial science first reared its ugly head - there have been a dozen or more definitions of the Caucasian taxon, and which ethnicities it covers. But as our goal is to assess the tag 'serial killer', the only one which matters here is what the FBI meant by Caucasian, when the Bureau made it a point of serial killing criterion.

Ethnologically Japanese, Light Yagami dodges a bullet in the FBI's definition of Caucasian - or 'white' as its literature elsewhere puts it - encompassing those races natively derived from Europe, North Africa and the Middle East. Kira doesn't count.

However, the notion that most serial killers are Caucasian is subject to fierce debate. Even the FBI's own statistics show Caucasians account for only just over half - 52.1% - of serial killers. The prevailing argument amongst academics is that such murderers, who otherwise fit the profile, may be found throughout all racial classifications. But non-Caucasian serial killers are unlikely to be the focus of blanket media coverage; much less central to several books, biographies, dramatized TV documentaries and finally a major motion picture release. In fact, most are lucky if they're even tagged 'serial killer' by the under-reporting press.

The rule of thumb seeming to be that, in the media, Caucasians may be serial killers, but non-Caucasians are always 'just a murderer'. It's less glamorous.

In short, Light Yagami may be a serial killer - albeit unlikely, as Asians made up just 0.7% of those profiled - but the US press is unlikely to bother with him. Ordinarily anyway. As Kira, he made quite a splash in the world's media. But by the time he got there, Light was deemed Saviour and Messiah, rather than any negative type of mass murderer.

Less open to question are the next two items. Serial killers tend to be aged late twenties to early thirties, and 92.3% of them were male. When he first used the Death Note, Light was seventeen. By the time he was forcibly made to finish killing, he was twenty-four. Atypical then. Nevertheless, he was indeed male.

Without knowing much about Japanese social hierarchies in comparison to what 'lower to middle class' might mean in American society, it's difficult to call the next criterion. Would anyone else like to jump in here? While the final one - was Kira Sociopathic? - is well beyond the scope of this analysis. Hopefully it will be addressed in another article at a later date.

As for the rest of the data, eighty-eight of the serial killers profiled by the FBI came from Japan. We can only assume that once of them was Light Yagami, while the other 87 were despatched by him via his Death Note by and by. Unless, of course, we conclude that Kira wasn't a serial killer. In which case, the latter figure leaps by one and all unanimously become victims of Kira's regime.

This section of classification seemed doomed to be unhelpful from the start. Nor did it disappoint in that. To my mind, the result remains inconclusive in assessment of Death Note's protagonist and his murderous tendencies, though more discussion may pay dividends as regards the last two points.

Nevertheless, we can trust the BSU's serial killer demographics to be internationally pertinent from now on, thus relevant in examining Light Yagami.

Criteria of a Serial Killer in Relation to Kira

By writing the names of his victims into a shinigami's Death Note, Kira certainly kills more than three people over the course of much longer than thirty days. He has access to at least one notebook of death from 2003-2010, a period of seven years.

Within hours of picking up that initial notebook, Light Yagami has written his first victim's name inside the covers.

By the time he's dealing with Ryuk's sudden visibility - five days later - Light has filled whole pages of his Death Note with neatly written rows. Four abreast, each name denotes another slaughter; creating columns stretching down over 40-50 lines.

At the most conservative estimate, a single page holds around 160 murder victims - revealing their identities, as well as representing the mode of their demise.

We will never know precisely how many individuals were killed by Kira, but we can be very sure that it was more than three.

Moreover the time-scale stretches out over that entire seven year period. One of Light's very last acts was the attempted murder of Near. Just two days previously, he'd also written Kiyomi Takada's name onto a scrap of paper ripped from his Death Note.

His killing never stopped.

But to qualify as a serial killer, Kira needs to have incorporated cooling off periods between his killing sprees. There is one very notable time of inactivity, when he was held under L's detention in a prison cell. However, that counts more as enforced abstinence from slaughter. Though voluntarily there, Light felt the caged, 24/7 surveillance to be fundamental to his own survival and continuance as Kira. It was inactivity to ensure future activity. That was all.

Was there any other occasion when Light Yagami paused his usage of the Death Note? Without first setting up a series of secondary Kiras to do his killing by proxy? I'm struggling to identify one. Misa Amane; the Yotsuba Group; Teru Mikami; and Kiyomi Takada; all assisted in maintaining those relentless murders reaching across the globe, at Light's direct or indirect instigation, throughout the entirety of that seven year reign of terror.

It's difficult to see where any cooling off breaks occurred in their midst, let alone those regular enough for Kira to be considered a serial killer.

That would appear to be that. Kira cannot be a serial killer, if he doesn't fit all of the criteria. However, he isn't the first to fail at this part of the classification. It's occurred in reality too - notably with Andrew Cunanan - leading criminal justice historian Peter Vronsky to suggest a hybrid tag of 'spree serial killer' or 'serial rampage killer' could be usefully employed.

And look how he describes this sub-section of serial killing:

There are serial killers who live only one identity - that of killer. They seem to have no cooling-off period; they do not return to a normal routine, but remain focused on evading capture and perpetuating their compulsion to kill.Peter Vronsky, Serial Killers: The Method and Madness of Monsters (2004), p 223

Over the next pages, he goes on to say how spree serial killers suffer some kind of nervous breakdown which traps them in this predatory persona. They cannot stop, hence the lack of a cooling off period. Nor can they retreat - 'they can never return back to their previous lives' (p 224) - they become the serial killer in all regards but inactivity. They become it 24/7.

Finally, there's the fourth criterion - did Light Yagami kill for psychological gratification? By which is meant that the motive wasn't material nor honour based (such as robbery, profit, revenge etc), but something much more internally self-fulfilling.

Why Did Light Yagami Kill in Death Note?

A serial killer's motive for murder is typically slotted into four categories, subject to considerable over-lap. Two of which are instantly game over, when we apply them to Death Note to see if psychological gratification was a motive in Kira's compulsion to kill. In order from least relevance, they are:

The Power Controller

Doing it all to feel powerful; subjugating their victims in any way possible, just to have that rush of absolute domination. Light touched here when he had prisoners across the world do strange things before their deaths. But that wasn't really about power and control. It was merely testing his Death Note's capabilities.

The Hedonist

Thrill-seeking; pleasure pandering; killing because they can, and people are expendable. Forensic psychologists further split this group into three sub-sections: comfort, thrill and lust. Comfort hedonists are the closest serial killers get to robbery-based murders. It's all about getting hold of the material possessions of their victims, or eliminating an obstacle to personal power. Thrill hedonist serial killers want the adrenaline rush of causing terror and pain, whilst exerting absolute control over their victims. Lust hedonists are your Jack the Ripper types, getting their kicks from mutilation, torture, dominance et al, but mostly what's implied on the label.

Light Yagami wasn't beyond this category. His elimination of Lind L. Taylor, twelve FBI agents and Naomi Misora established that within the opening chapters of Death Note. But it wasn't his main raison d'être.

The Visionary

This serial killer is on a mission from God, or the Devil, or any other supernatural and/or divine entity. They haven't merely an urge to kill, but a mandate to do it. A duty; responsibility; instructions from something beyond speaking solely to them.

Or else they are the Devil. Possessed and given the right to murder all in their vision, as per ancient entitlement.

Or else they are God of this new world.

Then nothing must be countenanced to stand in their way. They have deified judgement to be exerted as mercy, punishment or whim.

A rationale punctuated with psychotic episodes divorced from reality.

The Visionary Light Yagami was a simple schoolboy less than a week ago, now he's a serial killer and God

The Mission Orientated Saviours of Society

The world is rotten and the only way to save it from itself is to commit murder over and over again. Weeding out undesirables that society might heal itself and civilisation thrive.

Kill the baddies, so that decent people feel safe to walk the streets without finding themselves beset by murderers, assailants and thieves. Cleanse humanity by sending those deemed sub-human to their deaths.

Strangely these serial killers aren't generally psychotic (unless they have Visionary episodes). They genuinely believe their actions are just, and may even agree that the slaughter is unsavoury. It's a means to an end, that's all.

They have the strength to see their mission to conclusion; mentally prepared to kill everyone on the planet to save it from itself.

I think it goes without saying that we have a winner there. Two in fact, with an option on a third, though overlapping between categories of psychological gratification is usual in the motivation of serial killers.

BSU Serial Killer Background Check and Light Yagami's Life History

In the USA, the BSU studied life histories of known serial killers. Though researchers warned that serial killers could very easily hold down steady jobs, raise families and otherwise seem like fine upstanding members of society, some less savoury factors commonly and frequently arose.

In all likelihood, the background information in a serial killer's profile will include elements from this list:

Alcoholism;

Animal cruelty;

Arsonist/Pyromaniac;

Biochemical/genetic abnormalities;

Bullied in childhood or adolescence by their peers;

Childhood abuse victim;

Compulsive behaviour;

Drug abuse;

Drug addicted or alcoholic parents;

Engaged in petty crimes (like shoplifting or vandalism) for the thrill or because they could, rather than any material need nor as action under peer pressure;

Isolated socially as children or adolescents;

Low self-esteem;

Pathological lying;

Perinatal head injury;

Powerlessness in the face of their own urges to kill/unable to prevent or stop actually killing;

Propensity to retreat into habitual daydreams or a rich fantasy world, as an escape from reality;

Ritualistic behaviour;

Severe memory disorders;

Sexual assault - perpetrator and/or victim in the past;

Sexual deviancy;

Suicidal thoughts/attempts at suicide;

Unhappy childhood, or periods of profoundly interrupted happiness in childhood;

Unstable family life during childhood - broken home; divorced parents; separation from family; or some other breach in the parent/child relationship - commonly seen. Some studies suggest it's all about an absent father and domineering mother.

So how does the profile of a standard serial killer compare to Kira? I have my thoughts, but I'll leave this one open to discussion. Comment if you recognize anything from Light Yagami's past in there; or if you see nothing to fit him there at all. Let's hash it out between us.

But for now, I think it's fairly determined that Kira IS a serial killer, only he's one of the emerging sub-section suggested by Peter Vronsky labelled 'serial rampage killer'. Do you concur?

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Taking a philosophical lookat the world of Death Noteis our deep thinking columnistNathaniel Brown

The curious thing about the ideology of Light Yagami is that while he shares his father’s passion for justice he seems to be a fundamentally utilitarian thinker.

Utilitarianism revolves around the idea that the worth of an action is the sum of the aggregate pleasure it creates for people. If an actions creates more good for society than it does bad, than it is a decent action. Under this line of thinking the means can justify the ends! During his insane soliloquy at the end of the series Light concedes that 'that killing people in itself is a crime', but that it had to be done.

For him, murdering people was a necessary crime to fix this 'rotten world'.

What strikes me about Light’s character is actually how perversely noble he is (that is not to say I agree with what he did). Of the five people who obtain and use the Death Note in the series: Higuchi, Light, Misa, Jack and Mikami (and possibly Near if Matsuda is to be believed) only Light and Mikami (under Light’s guide) used it for selfless purposes.

Higuchi used it to advance his career and Misa used the Death Note first to get close to Light, then later to impress him. While Jack Neylon utilized it for purposes of organised crime. Light on the other hand used the Death Note purely to improve the world; and never for personal gain.

It’s hard to overstate just how few people in the World would ever do this. The Death Note represents the perfect opportunity to get away with anything you want for no cost.

Getting back to Light’s particular philosophy, it’s interesting to note that is his conception of using the death penalty as a deterrent is actually extremely successful (its success in reality is dubious at best). Crime rates drop drastically, organised crime and all that entails (slavery and the drug and sex trade) have almost completely ceased to exist and war is a thing of the past. This clearly provides a very real good for society.

While I wouldn’t argue Ohba is arguing that the death penalty is an effective deterrent, he is arguing humans have an innate fear of spirituality and the unknown, and perhaps an intuitive belief in God (hence why people are so willing to accept Kira as God). The reason why Light’s plan is so efficacious is because people perceive a God as infallible, but police officers regularly make mistakes. Hence why people were less likely to commit crimes when Kira was active.

In Yagami’s mind, the pain felt by criminals is nothing compared to the new found safety of innocent men, women and children and therefore his otherwise cruel actions are excusable.

Yagami’s beliefs come in the context of the Japanese legal system. Prosecutors often won’t take on criminals who haven’t confessed or there isn’t overwhelming evidence against in order to maintain a 100% conviction rate. Because of this many criminals walk free in Japanese society. The Japanese films make this element even more explicit than the anime with some of Light Yagami’s fury being actively caused by this absence of justice for the victims after he hacked into police computers and was horrified by the number of people who simply walked free.

Personally, I can’t help but wonder if Light Yagami’s utilitarianism might actually have been prudent within the context of his Universe. One could argue that it was a society based around fear, not justice, and while criminals certainly have a lot to be afraid of, for the common working man or woman I don’t think this holds true. Light Yagami is brilliant, and is unlikely to make errors when it comes to killing criminals, and so won’t kill innocents by mistake. While it’s likely some innocent people who have been arrested for crimes they didn’t commit are killed erroneously, I don’t think this would have been common. Light Yagami being too self-righteous to kill people whose guilt is uncertain. Furthermore, most people (from what we see) actively support Kira which would seem to imply that very few innocent people have been murdered by Kira (with the obvious exceptions of Raye, Naomi and other police officers who attempted to apprehend him).

With war and crime being a thing of the past, it’s fair to argue less people die by Light’s metaphorical hand than would have from crime in normal circumstances.

In 2012, the second last year of Light Yagami’s reign in the anime (and the only year I could find data for) over 437,000 people (approximately) were murdered. In the universe of Death Note, Light says, “Global crime rates have been reduced by over 70%.” So lets apply this number to how many people were murdered under his rule that year, and 437,000 in that one year becomes 131,000; a difference of 306,000. This means 306,000 people were saved from murder in that one, hypothetical year. This number, if you assume it holds true to the four years Light rules after the death of L, becomes 1,024,000.

This naturally excludes lives indirectly saved such as those would no longer die from the drug trade in the absence of major cartels. It also doesn’t factor in the great reductions in other horrific crimes and the beneficial impact that will have on many innocent people’s lives. Light Yagami was in many ways therefore justified, though he killed many, less people died on the whole and so it can be successfully argued that the means justify the ends.

One thing is certain though, even if you don’t agree with what I’ve written, Light Yagami is definitely a supporter of capital punishment.

Set on January 27th because that was the date, in 1945, which saw the liberation of Auschwitz. It's not just an historical 'woe, woe, that was bad' endeavour - though of course it was - but an awareness raising, bridge building day with one key message and goal.

It will happen again. No historian, nor human rights campaigner, let alone sociologist or political commentator, is naive enough to think it won't. All of the elements which gave rise to the Third Reich in the first place, and its horrific Final Solution of death camps, execution squads and gas chambers, exist right now. They swim endlessly in our society, often in the background, with a quite worrying frequency coming back to the fore.

Right now, religious leaders in France are warning Jews to not wear their skullcaps, as it renders them too visible a target. French Jews are beginning to flee their country - as yet a trickle, in danger of becoming an exodus. All across Europe, borders are being closed to those fleeing war and arbitrary cruelties in Syria.

In Britain, asylum seekers were made to don - and keep on 24/7 - distinctive wristbands in Cardiff, thus ensuring that they were publicly identifiable at a glance. While in the north-east of England, refugees housed by the Home Office found that their front doors had been painted bright red. All the better for local thugs and hoodlums to know were they lived.

Everywhere the Far Right is gaining more ground politically than at any other time since the Holocaust.

The USA has a concentration camp, which its citizens apparently don't deem worth rising in enough numbers to pressure their government to close. Because they haven't. While momentum is gathering beyond presidential candidate Donald Trump, whose views wouldn't have been out of step with Hitler's Nazi Regime, including conceptual support for race based internment camps.

In a culture of supposed danger and fear, people will support anything which makes them feel safe.

Meanwhile, Australia is condemning thousands of people to unaccountable 'detention facilities' on islands off their shores. Human Rights inspectors have been banned from entering. Legal processes are done in utmost secrecy (with no evidence that they're being done at all). The reports coming out of places like Manus Island and Nauru are unsettling to say the least. North Korea undoubtedly has death camps. About which much lip service in shaking head disapproval has been afforded by the outside world. But not enough to do anything about it.

All this makes 'never again' seem like a joke. 'Not on my watch' is about the best we can do, and even then it's a terribly uphill struggle.

We have Holocaust Memorial Day on January 27th, not because people forget, but because they forget the specifics and that's what allows the memory to metamorphose into lived experience.

Never again indeed, and certainly not on my watch.

Kira and the Nazi Party: Would our Saviour be Light Yagami in the Holocaust?

However, while these sentiments might be very noble and all, it begs the question - why is Holocaust Memorial Day on Death Note News' watch? It's a little off-topic for a manga (and derivatives) set half a century on from said Auschwitz liberation.

You got me. Guilty as charged. Holocaust historian here, ninja-ing an important date in my calendar into the remit of Death Note.

But because it's an important date, and my thoughts are otherwise largely swirling around content for articles here, the two merged in a musing during my commute this morning: what if Kira had come a couple of generations before? What if Light Yagami's statement that 'the world is rotten' had taken place against a global back-drop of World War II, the rise of Hitler and the actuality of the Holocaust?

Would the names written in his Death Note have included Heinrich Himmler, Martin Bormann, Josef Mengele, Hermann Göring, Joseph Goebbels and the rest of their ilk? What would have happened historically, if Kira took out Rudolf Höss before he'd perfected killing on an industrial scale with Zyklon B and cremations?

An intriguing 'what if' in history, but not one which could be answered easily and definitely not within the scope of this article.

Is Justice Served by Kira if his Death Note Ends Genocide?

What concerned me more was the logical query following on - if Kira single-handedly averted the Holocaust through mass murder, does that make him the good guy? Or just as bad as those he sought to destroy?

The human rights activist in me wants to say the latter. The historian is wide-eyed and tight lipped with quivering self-horror at my sensibility's tacit assent for the former.

The philosopher of my first degree mutters on about two wrongs not making a right.

The literary critic snaps that this is precisely the sort of dilemma encountered by all within the canon Death Note universe, during the ascendancy of Kira's New World.

I'm sure we can all very keenly picture Near's sneering reaction in disdain of the question. For him, Kira is a serial killer no matter what the underlying cause. There is no justification. Not even the millions consigned to the gas chambers, starved, exposed to epidemics, subjected to scientific/medical experimentation or shot into mass graves. Even then, Light Yagami is just a murderer.

Where do you stand on the issue?

Imagining a Nazi Kira and the Death Note's Final Solution

Of course, this is all assuming that Light Yagami morally and actively opposed the Holocaust. It must be remembered that Japan allied WITH Nazi Germany during the period when the Final Solution was being enacted.

Our sense of right and wrong, just or unfair, moral or corrupt, is shaped by our upbringing, societal pressures and the drip-drop of propaganda as fed by every nation's media on any given day. More so than any of us would like to admit. Hence it's reasonable to assume that Light Yagami's chief exposure to the Holocaust would be within a generally supportive cultural back-drop. His information and resultant position could well be akin to Hitler and his government.

Which leads us to another proposal ranked with horrors: what if Light's Death Note was used for the Nazis? How even more widespread might be the Final Solution with the Death Note involved? (Political dissidents, or fleeing refugees known by name and photograph, reached without resource to a death camp.)

Or more pertinently put, what if the Death Note fell into the hands of Nazis? Then and now.

How much more terrifying might our watch be? And would we ever get the chance to say 'never again'?

Or could collusion create yet more greatly amassed clues to Yagami's own identity? To play out with deductive precision in a Wammy House mind, thus rendering Kira's capture a swifter endeavour?

Or don't you think Light Yagami would have involved himself in the Holocaust at all? Ignoring its reality, just as so many of us continue on apathetically when faced with elements today similar to those once staged by a burgeoning Nazi regime.

A pointless musing perhaps, but one which pays dividends in awareness on a day like this.

If even L can be met in his Philosophy, thenresident Death Note News columnist, ourover-thinking Nathaniel Brownis the man for the job.

Near (no pun intended) the beginning of Death Note, L famously proclaims “I am justice”, which is funny because he has no such interest in justice.

It’s always been an amusing quirk that the character who heads the task force wasn’t pursing the world’s most prolific serial killer for moral reasons, but rather for his own amusement. In fact, there seems to be a massive juxtaposition between the L at the start of Death Note, and the L we see when the task force finally meets him in person.

Partially I think this is because Ohba didn’t fully know what he wanted to do with the character at the start of the series. The early L looks composed, almost handsome when we see his face. He talks about how Kira is evil to the International Criminal Police Organization with deep passion and seems to truly believe it. However, in the Death NoteOne Shot L tells the children of Wammy House, “It’s not a sense of justice. Figuring out cases is my hobby. If you measured good and evil by current laws, I would be responsible for many crimes.”

L Describes his Morality in the Death Note One Shot

This is true - very early on into the series, an L who views Kira as evil is clearly a hypocrite. He lets Lind. L Tailor die to prove Kira can kill without being there in person. He attempts to let the Yotsuba Group kill criminals in order to prove their guilt and is willing to let a criminal possibly die to test the '13 day Rule'.

Whether or not you agree with these actions is moot, he’s prepared to kill criminals to catch a man who kills criminals. This is morally self-defeating in the worst way possible. The most consistent look at L (at least from the manga and anime) is one who, while not completely without redeeming features, isn’t concerned with higher values.

Alas poor Yagami, I knew him...L. Lawliet in Hamlet mode

L, is in many ways the antithesis to Light. Whereas Light is handsome and meticulously dressed, L is dishevelled. Light is charming; L is almost autistic. Light is extremely moral; L doesn’t seem to believe in morals.

The only traits they do seem to share is that they’re both chronic liars and are extremely brilliant.

I doubt L ever thought about his Philosophy in these terms; but he is fundamentally a materialist thinker. Materialists believe that there is no objective morality and good and evil are entirely human concepts (think of Hamlet’s famous proclamation, “There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.”) and that existence is entirely physical.